Pages

No bread is an island

...entire of itself. (With apologies to John Donne!)

I live and breathe breadmaking. I’m an evangelist who would like everyone to make his or her own bread. I want to demystify breadmaking and show it as the easy everyday craft that it is. To this end I endeavour to make my recipes as simple and as foolproof as I possibly can.

I call my blog 'No bread is an island' because every bread is connected to another bread. So a spicy fruit bun with a cross on top is a hot cross bun. This fruit dough will also make a fruit loaf - or Chelsea buns or a Swedish tea ring...

I'm also a vegan, so I have lots of vegan recipes on here - and I'm adding more all the time.

About Me

Torn away from the bosom of my family at the tender age of 18 - and never lived in my home town of Blackburn again. The RAF took me to HK; After a hitch of four years I emigrated to Australia and joined the RAAF, which took me to HK where I met my wife of 43 years. I then joined GCHQ which took me (us, with 2 children now) back to HK. Retired at 55, trained as a teacher of adults, gained a 2:1 in Teaching and Training at Plymouth Uni (which I thought went well with the 2 'O' levels with which I left school). And I've been teaching breadmaking ever since. Now running 6 or 7 classes a week, plus the odd Saturday workshop. My passion is breadmaking - or perhaps I should say the teaching of breadmaking; I'm also very interested in early development; And I like to cook - but I consider myself to be pretty average. I have a wife, two children, a daughter-in-law and a son-in-law and three grandchildren, (who can all make bread) who come and stay with us in the holidays and half-terms. Away from my family, I'm happiest teaching a Family Learning group, with parents and children, none of whom have made bread before. I get a real buzz out of turning people onto breadmaking.

Pinterest

Wednesday, 10 February 2016

BREAD IN 8 MINUTES - USING A GEORGE FOREMAN GRILL

Wednesday 10th Feb 2016

Wholemeal flatbread

I'd run out of wholemeal - but, rather than make a loaf as I usually do I thought I'd make a batch of rolls. I wanted some to give to a friend of mine who was always searching out vegan things for me to eat. At the same time, I thought I'd use the sandwich grill idea to make some yeast-risen bread for my lunch.So I made the dough, kneaded it, and weighed off 200g. This I rolled out to the size of the grill and placed it on there with the heat on - just for a minute to help with the rising. I didn't put the lid down at this stage. I left it for about 30 minutes before putting the grill on to warm up. After a couple of minutes I put the bread in for 4 minutes - and the above pic is the result, half of which I had for lunch. Very acceptable.The rest of the dough I made into a dozen rolls, placed them on a baking sheet and covered them with an upturned roasting tin. These were to be baked using the undercover, or 'cloche' method.18th January 2016

Fruit soda bread

I'd been meaning to try this out for a while - so when my wife wanted something to eat with her afternoon coffee, I swung into action:Switch on the grill.Measure ingredients:50g s/r flour1 teaspoon sugar1/2 tsp mixed spice50g sultanas30+g waterMix into a dough, turn out on worktop, knead for about 5 seconds, flatten out into a disc about 15cm across, place in grill.This took about 3-4 minutes. Put timer on for 3 minutes.After 3 minutes turn over for one further minute.Serve!This method would also work for other flatbreads. I could imagine knocking out 4 naan breads in about 20 minutes, for instance.Cost:Flour - 1.5pSugar - 1p?Spice - 1p?Sultanas - 8pTotal - say 12p

Hi Mamta, how nice to hear from you!I only tried it because it happened to be out - and I'm always looking for ways of making bread which don't involve an oven.I work with homeless people who are more likely to have a hob than an oven, so we make lots of bread in the frying pan.Back to the GF grill - my wife wants to get a 5-place version, but, since there's only the two of us, there seems to be little point.Regards, Paul